"Melanie Rawn - Spellbinder" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rawn Melanie)

corner, she was struggling back to consciousness. Simon placed the chalice against
her lips and told her to drink.
"You can tell us about it later," the old man said, casting a warning glance at Elias.
"Just rest now, my dear."
A minute or so later she lay limp with sleep. Simon covered her with his own robe
and stood there in shirtsleeves and suspenders, shaking his head worriedly.
"What the hell just happened?" Ian demanded.
"She had a glimpse of the past, I should think," Elias said.
Ian gestured impatiently. "Have you ever known her to see the past in any work
we've ever done?"
"But the swastikaтАФ "
"With a cross, both in flames."
Elias shrugged. "The Nazis were nominally Christians."
"What else was it she said? It sounded nothing like French or Hebrew, which as far
as I know are the only languages she speaks besides English."
"Ian," murmured Elias, "you're my friend and my colleague, and I value you
tremendously. But at the times your curiosity drives me utterly mad."
"Short trip," Kate retorted, bending over Lydia, smoothing back her
sweat-dampened hair. "Let her sleep it off. I'll stay with herтАФyou too, Simon. Elias,
see to Holly. The rest of you, go home and get some rest."
There was some murmuring as they hung up their robes and put away implements
and doused candles. Someone picked up Lydia's thurible and extinguished it. Elias
ignored everything but HollyтАФwho still stood on her point of the inlaid oak
pentagram, arms wrapped protectively around the Waterford chalice.
"You can give it back now," he said, gently prying her fingers loose.
She looked at him as if she had never seen him before.
"You know what she is," he reminded her as he took the crystal.
She nodded. "Sciomancer. Diviner of shadows." Shaking herself visibly, she
shrugged out of her silver robe as if the action would rid her of magic, too. "Why
the swastika?"
"Her grandmother was a Holocaust survivor."
"Diviner of the future in shadows," Holly corrected grimly.
"With occasional echoes of the past." He wasn't about to say what he really wanted
to say, which was, How the hell would I know why she saw what she saw and said
what she said?
"The swastika wasn't originally a Nazi symbol, you know."
And now, he told himself, he would be privileged to hear a lecture from one of the
greatest collectors of pretty much useless information he had ever met.
"It's found from Ireland, where it was the Cross of St. Bridget, to India, which is
where the Sanskrit word 'swastika' comes from. The Hopi, the Plains Indians, and
the Maya used it in the Americas. About the only place it's never been found, in fact,
is central Africa."
"Fascinating," he said quellingly.
Holly was relentless. "The Sun Wheel, fertility, life, good fortuneтАФit shows up on
the feet of the Buddha, as a sign of Artemis, and it's even been found in Jewish
temples many thousands of years old." There was an instants pause for breath.
"What direction was it turning?"
He gave a start, surprised at being asked a question. He'd found that usually when
she got going, not much slowed her down.
"Right or left?" Holly gestured impatiently. "Deosil or widdershins? Right is the sun